Chat thread – Thursday 7th August

[Rob]

This is today’s chat thread.

If you have specific questions about Avios, hotels or credit cards, please ask them in the appropriate forum and not here. This thread is a good place to post interesting deals you have spotted or your general thoughts on travel and all things miles and points. Thank you for contributing.

[Just Nick]

Hi all,

Due to fly on the Qatar A380 next month to Doha in business class booked through BA on Avios. Would love to try first class and was wondering if people had experience of being offered a paid upgrade at the airport. If so, what sort of price was offered and was the experience worth it.

Have upgrade offers appeared on the Qatar manage my booking site?

Cheers

Nick

[degsy]

Morning all. Does anyone have experience of taking golf clubs on a BA flight?
Per the website there’s an online form which needs completing – duly done. This triggered an email back from BA saying I needed to complete a further form. It was the same form as i originally completed but I duly completed it again.
This then resulted in a further response saying they couldn’t help me through this channel and I needed to speak to them. 😡

[JDB]

degsy wrote:

Morning all. Does anyone have experience of taking golf clubs on a BA flight?
Per the website there’s an online form which needs completing – duly done. This triggered an email back from BA saying I needed to complete a further form. It was the same form as i originally completed but I duly completed it again.
This then resulted in a further response saying they couldn’t help me through this channel and I needed to speak to them. 😡

Not sure what form they are wanting? We carry golf clubs regularly and have never completed a form. They count as one of your checked pieces, even if they don’t meet the usual case dimensions. You will usually need to take them to the outsize bag area after they have been tagged and they will sometimes be delivered on the belt, sometimes with outsize. It’s worth getting an outer bag to protect the golf bag itself, also useful for packing awkward shaped items that don’t fit easily in a normal case.

[degsy]

Thanks for the prompt and helpful response @JDB. This is a link to the form I referenced:
https://www.britishairways.com/content/information/baggage-essentials/sports-equipment
Given what you’ve said though, I’m not going to do anything further and just turn up.

[ExExpat]

@degsy to echo JDB, I have carried sports equipment (skis) on numerous BA flights without incident having never completed a form in advance. They count as a piece of checked baggage and just get taken to the oversized baggage area after checking in any other hold baggage. I often get excellent value from booking BA Club Europe reward seats on avios for ski flights where I fully utilise the extra baggage allowance with 1 x hold bag and 1 x ski bag, which usually still works out cheaper than the cash price of paying for an Economy Plus ticket as well as an additional hold bag (and is altogether a more pleasant experience!). I find that the priority ski bags/sports equipment often comes out first at arrival airports’ oversized baggage areas too, although YMMV.

[titaniumostrich]

Unsollicited data point: golf bags are free on KLM for Silver and above, don’t even count toward your total. They used to disregard ski’s the check-in desk most of the time as well, but have become more strict on those the last few years.